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 | | From: | akalaniz at hotmail.com | | Subject: | Oil independance | | Date: | Mon, 17 Jan 2005 17:38:30 -0600 |
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 | Nearby at Sandia National Labs a 19th century technology is being
perfected that may very quickly and relatively cheaply rid the US of
much of its oil dependence. For decades people have been trying to
make solar cells (which convert sunlight directly into electricity)
competitive with fossile fuels with not much success. The new (really
old) approach is to use mirrors to heat some kind of working fluid (not
necessarilty water) to make steam and drive turbines to generate
electricity. It is estimated that about 20,000 units can make about
500 MW, equivalent to a very large nuclear reactor. A small testbed is
already demonstrating the technology in New Mexico. With mass
production, this new method to generate electricity could definitely
become competitive with fossile fuels. Hopefully we have the political
will to proceed, and thus to begin to unlink ourselves from dependence
on foreign sources of energy.
Alex Alaniz, PhD
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